Yes. I’m talking to you. I’m talking to those of you that have women in their lives that you love. Those who have gay or minority friends or family members. Maybe you’re pals with people who are religious but aren’t Christian.

Things are kinda crazy right now with the Trump election and all. There’s a lot of anxiety and fear. There’s some anger and denial.

I get it.

So, take some time and scream and bitch. Cry if you have to. Get liquored up. Watch Netflix in your pillow fort. Have a nap. Grieve.

And then we have to get our shit together. Because there’s a lot of people who are going to need us. They’re going to need our help. I’m not even exactly sure what that means. But I know it to be true.

For those of you that don’t know, Hinge and Bumble are the allegedly less creepy dating apps. I’ve used the creepy ones too. The one thing they all have in common is that none of them work for me.

None of them.

But wouldn’t it be awesome if one of them did work? If the app on my phone delivered profiles of beautiful, funny women who like dogs and Star Wars and nachos? Women that enjoy late night philosophical conversations over a cocktail?

Hell yeah it would!

And I could swipe right to let them know I’m interested.

And out of the hundreds of women that I liked, some would respond. And a handful of them would meet me and give me the opportunity to ruin my chances with them in person.

Or maybe some of them would ruin things with tales of a previously undisclosed cat or by chewing with her mouth open.

I don’t know.

But I believe that there are two possible reasons why these apps suck so incredibly bad for me:

1) The profiles are created by women, who for whatever reason have abandoned them. Maybe they were bored, or joined on a dare, were just curious, or met someone and have since forgotten about the app and no longer check responses.

2) The profiles are fake.

Number 2 is very possible considering that a huge number of profiles were revealed to be fake during The Great Ashley Madison Hack of 2015. If there are lots fakes on that site, why not on other sites and apps too?

You will notice that I have left out the possibility that I am uninteresting or ugly. I may be both, but just go to the mall, a bar, or restaurant on any day of the week and you will see women dating ugly, boring dudes.

I’m going to call on all men to put down the stupid, ineffective dating apps that only seek to exploit us for revenue, and stand for something.

Stand for courage. Stand for confidence. And reclaim the lost art of the the cold approach walk-up.

Use the 3 second rule, and if you see a woman out and about that you fancy, do something!

Anything.

Buy her a flower.

Ask her a question.

Tell her a story.

Hand her a puppy.

Something!

And you have 3 seconds to do it in. If you wait longer than that, you’ll talk yourself out of it and lose your nerve. And be a F*cking gentleman. That way if she’s just not into you, you won’t be ruining things for the rest of us.

And I’ll be out there with you.

That’s right!

And NOT swiping right, sending my intentions out into a cold, vast, indifferent cyber universe.

His name was Jeff. I don’t remember how we knew each other. We didn’t have any classes together. In fact, I don’t know that we’d ever exchanged a word. It was like we didn’t need to. We were both shy and there was this sweet warmth between us that came through in our eyes and our smiles just fine.

But just in case there was any question about our feelings for one another, our best friends cleared it up. Ashley and Tommy conferred on the matter, then reported back to us.

Indeed, I liked Jeff and he liked me.

Soon thereafter, it happened.

Jeff asked Tommy to ask Ashley to ask me if I would go with him.

(In case that means something different to you than it does to me, to go with a boy meant to be their girlfriend, even though there was never much going anywhere together at all.)

It was a dream come true.

The boy I liked wanted to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with him. So you can imagine my response, though you’ll probably get it wrong. I said no.

Maybe I was afraid of my feelings, too young to feel the intensity of love I sensed could develop between us.

Maybe I was afraid my family would be moving again soon, which we did about once a year, and it would only end up breaking Jeff’s heart and mine.

Or maybe I was afraid of what people would think. Jeff wasn’t popular. I wasn’t either, but I was new in this school and thought maybe I still had a chance.

Whatever the reason I said no, I don’t remember any such reservations occurring to me before he asked. Like when I had been entertaining the thought of being with him in my head. Or flirting with him in the halls. Or telling my best friend to tell his best friend I liked him.

All I know is that as soon as I said no, I felt like a terrible person and I deeply regretted it.

Maybe we would have been one of those couples who falls in love when they’re kids. He would have been the only man I was ever with, and me the only woman for him. We would have been married 25 years now, with five kids and grandkids on the way.

We would still make love every night, hold hands every day, and be the best of friends.

Or not.

Maybe I wasn’t a terrible person back then; maybe I was listening to my gut.

Maybe Jeff was really the first in a long line of jerks I subsequently dated. And maybe I said yes to them – ignoring my gut that knew better – because I felt so bad about rejecting him.

I don’t mind the mystery.

Meredith Simonds is a writer living in Los Angeles and founder of Plenty Woman, a website for women ready to believe we are everything anxiety says we’re not: Beautiful. Lovable. Powerful. Important. Smart.

I think most of us have become so conditioned to spam email that we just simply delete it and move on with our day, accepting it like those little gnats that fly up our noses in the summertime.

Like, if you’re going to be outside, gnats are going to fly up your nose sometimes. If you’re going to be online, there’s going to be pop-ups and spam in your email.

What do those gnats want anyway? What is up my nose that is so damn enticing?

I’ve examined my cavernous nose closely, and I just don’t get it.

In any case, spam texts are getting to be a thing. And I have to admit that I find them even more annoying and intrusive than spam email.

So, I’ve decided to have fun with them, to experience them with a sense of joy, instead of wishing I could find the person sending them and burn their house to the ground while all of their neighbors watch and I yell, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!”

Because I’d probably get in trouble.

And who has time for all that?

But yeah, so the key is to handling spam texts is the key to so many things in life.

He claimed that some of his liberal Hollywood friends are more conservative than they think but they just hate the word “Republican.”

I agree. I’ve hated that word since the Dark Times, since the presidency of “W.”

To me, a registered independent, and many others, it’s a word synonymous with hate, bigotry, a disregard for the poor and suffering, and tax breaks for profitable, billion dollar corporations.

It’s a word that means women are too dumb to decide what to do with their own bodies, young people need to be sheltered from evidenced-based sex education, and there are limits on who intelligent, consenting, tax paying adults are allowed to marry.

It’s a word that says the bible is all we need. That it can in fact replace the constitution and the modern sciences.

It’s a word synonymous with, “No we won’t do anything Obama wants to do. Period. We won’t even listen. And we don’t care if anyone notices that we aren’t listening.”

Now, before people get all angry and send me hateful messages, take a breath and continue reading.

I’m talking about BRANDING here.

Branding.

Have their been some great republican presidents?

Hell yeah!

Have they done some amazing things?

Hell yeah!

Do current day republicans have some valid concerns and good ideas for moving this country forward.

Maybe? I don’t know.

Because those people and ideas never get through.

Never.

Because the brand has weakened.

The marketing sucks.

Sure, some people eat at McDonalds. But to a lot of us, McDonald’s represents garbage food with almost no nutritional value.

Because the brand has weakened, even though they have salads.

Chipotle also has salads. I like Chipotle. And their food is healthier. Or so I believe.

Because that’s their brand.

So at this point in our country’s history, with the Republican Party in such disarray, it seems they have a lot of work to do to change many people’s opinion of them. But it’s also an opportunity. I hope they take it.

And you can say that I am completely wrong in my opinion and impression of republicans.

But that would help me make my case.

Because this is how a lot of people see the GOP, no matter the reality.

One cannot argue with how someone sees them. They can only try to present themselves in a way that changes opinion. Actions are louder than words.

Branding!

And I don’t hate republicans. Let me go ahead, with my one finger typing method, and type that again in all caps.

I DON’T HATE REPUBLICANS.

There are some that I love dearly. One I have a huge crush on. And several that have created jobs for me that I’m very grateful for.

This is a guest post by Sarah Fader, who called me out to write a post for The Goodmen Project. So, I called her out here.

Once upon a time, I was on Twitter lamenting about not finding love. I was saying how I attract emotionally unavailable men. Out of nowhere, this dude that I have never interacted with comes along and replies:

“Children scare men.”

It took me a moment to figure out what the hell he was talking about. I presumed he meant that the concept of having children was not desirable to men. But then my brain started playing around with the idea and I imagined my two kids dressed up in monster costumes standing in a dark hallway deliberately trying to cock block me.

That was pretty funny.

Though I was relatively certain what he meant by the scared children comment, I wanted to confirm that he was making a mass generalization before I retaliated. I asked him what he meant and he said that when a man finds out that a woman has children, he becomes afraid. I prodded him and wanted to know what he meant by “afraid.” He went on to say that men do not want to raise another man’s children.

This was seriously one of the weirdest interactions I’d ever had on Twitter.

I felt like he was making a lot of assumptions. Every man is scared of children? Children are not scary. They are fun and weird and sometimes they lose their teeth and get money for it. They love chocolate and ice cream and they say weird, funny stuff. Why would men be scared of children?

But then I realized that he was kind of right.

One time I joined a dating website for 24 hours. I was chatting with a nice guy. We spoke about our random jobs that we had in our three decade adult lives, our pets, hobbies, and favorite movies. Then he found out that I had kids. He stopped replying to my texts and disappeared. I started to believe that weird Twitter guy was on to something.

I still don’t know why men are terrified of children, but I do know that it’s lame.

Single moms want to have romance and some semblance of a sex life too. Why should the fact that I have children make me any less attractive?

I think that is discrimination and it’s just plain ridiculous. I love my children and they also drive me crazy. But, they are a big part of my life. They come with this package that is Sarah Fader. So, if you love me, you love them.

You also love chocolate pudding pie. I’ve decided that you do.

Men, please stop judging women if they have children. Don’t write off a woman as undateable just because she has two little shorties she lives with. Those children are her universe and there is also room in it for you.

If she likes you.

Sarah Fader recently released a collection of her essays from around the Internet and you already love her because you read this article and you want to buy her book.